Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Synanim - Peace not Povetry

Participated in the Peace not Povetry Synanim today. A little bit like a two-hour essay exam in college. It was fun, and also frustrating. I didn't know who my group members were and they didn't know me, but there were 6 of us and they all rated me as number 4. That was OK with me. They wanted to resolve the war in Iraq by withdrawing all troops in 30 days and sending in the Peace Corps. They wanted to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and several others - not that I totally disagree with any of that but I really didn't see that fitting into any kind of a practical way to try to bring the war to an end. This was all done under some serious time restraints - you had to think fast and type fast. Here is my final post:

Ask for a public debate throughout the world. Emphasize that this is not just the end of the war in Iraq but hopefully THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF ALL WARS. Invite UN help. Ask the UN to set up a schedule of public events, to discuss how the war began, what went wrong, and what can be done now. Focus on the outcome.
Bring in people who have had experience working in this type of work before. Bring in some of the people who have benefited from this work, such as places in Africa, the Balkans, and South America.
The Carter Center in Atlanta has many resources that can help, they have access to many people who have done this type of work before, mostly in smaller places. There are other similar organizations - invite all of them to prepare a presentation of suggestions. Ask them to take part in a forum at the UN.
Invite past Noble Prize winners to speak to the subject at the UN.
The United States could ask the Security Council for their suggestions, then open that debate to the entire UN,
Invite neighboring nations (to Iraq) to help.
Some of them can help quietly and in the background. Perhaps they can send "peace troops" in who understand complexities of Iraqs language, religion and mores. They can help curtail terrorists by dealing with them in their homeland.
Israel needs to "understand" that it is part of this problem too, and part of the solution depends upon them restraining their actions and words.
Work with Iraqis to solicit information on peace.
Ask Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites, to work separately, then come together and catagorize their problems and desires. Find mutual ground, and irresolvable differences. Then speak about those, perhaps at a UN forum. Again get professional help in working with them - again the Carter Center comes to mind.
Work with opposition parties in US. What are the good suggestions, what do they see as the problems and the causes of those problems. What do they see as opportunities.
That might be a little like this experience we are taking place in right now. Ask for discussions among the small towns throughout the world. There is a lot of wisdom there.
Check with Old Europe - they have had a lot of practice lately with this kind of thing. They have found that all of their wars have not accomplished much except destruction and reconstruction.
Admit our own errors publicly. Apologize. Work to create a Peace Agency in our own government.

Is Wal-Mart Really to Blame?

Is Wal-Mart Really to Blame?

WARNING - this article contains graphic and explicit language which may not be suitable for those who are not mature enough to think for themselves.

Well of course Wal-Mart is to blame - everybody knows that! They have gone around the globe to find the lowest prices for their consumers and they have brought variety and economy to their stores. As a result, the American public has flocked to them as if grateful for a chance to get rid of all of that nasty money.

In a sense Wal-Mart is only a continuation of the Silk Road traders, those camel caravans that crossed mankind's’ first “seas”, the great Asian and Middle Eastern deserts. They were followed by sailing fleets that traded Oriental goods and European goods. In the 1400’s Mercantilism developed out of the same process and rendered the value of everything into monetary worth and led to the development of colonialism, slavery, share cropping, the company store, and coal-miners’-daughters.

We now see the same concept moving into the construction industry. As the cost of private homes here in Franklin, NC rises from $120 through $200 a square foot, new alternatives begin to creep out onto the market stage. Besides doublewides, this market now includes manufactured homes, modular homes, and stick-builts which are produced at factories and assembled with labor brought in from outside the area, some of which comes from Mexico. Who is at fault here? The local contractors who charge $150 a square foot, or the new factory-contractors with their $80 a square foot price tag?

We want to support our local folks, of course. But - at $150 a sqft, a 1500 sqft home costs $225,000; the new guys will do that same home for $120,000. Or, that $225,000 you would pay for a locally built 1500 sqft house would buy you a 2900 sqft house with the new guys! There is no decision to be made here. The question frames its own decision.
So who’s to blame? How could it be the local contractors? They are just trying to build a family business and support other hardworking Americans. Of course the outside guys who come in here are only providing supply for a demand that is clearly being expressed by the public - how can we hold them at fault? Could it possibly be the public, for being too Mercantilistic and valuing everything in the concept of dollars?

(WARNING: Here is where it gets graphic, folks. No one who is incapable of mature thinking should read any further!)

Maybe it is just a failure of the market economy. Read on.
What has happened is that the income gap has widened to the point of unsustainability. More and more employees are working for wages that will not support them, much less buy $200,000 homes. Meanwhile, those who have good jobs are making more and more money, and becoming fewer and fewer in number. Two groups, which have always existed in every society before, and probably always will, the “have-nots” and the “have-a-lots” have come to inherit the entire economy. In America, in the past, both of them occupied a much smaller part, separated by a large middle class which absorbed people from the “have-nots”, and fed a fewer number of their members into the “have-a-lots”.

But now the American middle class is fading out of existence. It is becoming another of the endangered species. A great economic extinction is already in progress: corner groceries, hardware stores, neighborhood book sellers, along with cafés, butchers, ice cream parlors, hamburger grills, city newsstands, bakeries, locally owned florists, newspapers, radio stations, funeral parlors, banks, real estate offices and endless groups of others including mom & pop diners and restaurants, small industries, family farms and small fishing fleets, all these have been replaced by corporate capitalistic enterprises. Now it is the middle class.

The construction dilemma is similar to a Wal-Mart moving in to a small town. It is reminiscent of the arrival of MacDonalds’ chains. The local guys can’t compete for the public’s money at the prices these great corporations bring in to the community. Neither can the local farmers, they eventually have to sell out - usually at rock bottom prices to the same factory farm that has driven them out of business. They were middle-class but now are “have-nots”, and may even work for the “have-a-lots” who now have even more than they did before.

Why didn’t this happen in the past? Actually it did happen many times in the 18th and 19th century. Booms, busts and “panics” ran through a rapid succession of inflations and recessions, even depressions, until the late 1920’s when the Great Depression fastened itself upon the world. From there most governments around the world began to assert themselves over businesses and not just demand change, but dictated a new way of life to them. For the next 70 years, government regulated much of business, at least Big Business. Goods and services were provided in an increasing amount and the people who provided them made enough money in wages to buy the things they produced. A middle class developed and grew, and with it came a measure of predictability and security. As that middle class began to disperse, it was replaced by a new entity which masked the demise of the middle class and “stretched” it. That new class was the Credit Class. As the middle class was being replaced by a debtor society, the effect was muted because middle class people were able to “hang on” by increasing their debt - “for a short time”. Now, as we enter what President Bush proudly calls the Ownership Society, most middle class people really don’t “own” anything except a constantly increasing debt. Now as their pensions are evaporating, they are falling into the have-not group, and looking for a job at the factory farm.

Codex Alimentarius

Emily Dale wrote in on the Blog (Congress Meets its Match) asking about Codex Alimenatrius - what did I know. I knew that it smacked of scare talk and was without substance. So today I thought I would follow that up. Here's what happened:

050330We1224. Called Congressman Taylor's office 202.225.6401. Talked with aide about Codex Alimentarius. He says he is familiar with issue and that it is very complicated. He agrees that as far as he knows, the Codex Alimentarius will go into effect in June, requiring the FDA to approve all vitamins and supplements, then a medical doctor will be required to examine a patient and prescribe supplements - if “necessary”, then the supplements will have to be purchased from pharmaceutical companies. He also said HB 1146 had been introduced this session, just before Easter recess, and if it passed the House, and was introduced in and passed the Senate, and was signed by the President, then it would “restore soverignty to the United States” concerning this matter. He said he had no idea how Congressman Taylor stood in relation to this issue, but that it was a “very complex issue”. My own experience in the past has been that when people in Washington say something is “very complicated”, that means that there are a lot of special interests involved.
050330We1238. Senator Dole’s Office 202.22426342, Was connected to a "specialist" - not in. got Voice Mail - left message with him including my phone number & email.
050330We1246. Senator Burr’s Office. 202-224-3154. Knew nothing about it. After I mentioned HB 1146, he checked it out and found out that it was introduced by Ron Paul (R) Texas, on March 8. HB 1146 is titled “End membership of United States in the United Nations” - in other words, the United States would withdraw from the UN.
Other information - there must be many more, but information is slow today.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_policies/Codex_Alimentarius/index.asp

http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/w9114e/W9114e00.htm

http://www.sumeria.net/health/hpb-codex.html

"In October, 1996, Codex met in Bonn, Germany, to make radical changes in the rules governing dietary supplements for member nations. The proposals of greatest concern were those made by the German delegation ("Proposed Draft Guidelines for Dietary Supplements"), which is being sponsored by Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.
The drug company backed proposals call for the following:
1. No vitamin, mineral, herb, etc., can be sold for prophylactic (preventative) or therapeutic reasons.
2. Natural remedies can be sold as food but they must not exceed the potency (dosage) levels set by the commission. This means that consumer access to dietary supplements will be limited to the RDA dosage as a maximum limit for vitamins (vitamin C - 60 mg, vitamin E - 15 mg, etc.). Supplements without an RDA (e.g. coenzyme Q10) would be illegal to sell because they would all become drugs.
3. Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding, eliminating the escape clause within the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that allows a nation to set its own standards. This applies to all member countries of the U.N. Any nation that does not accept and apply these new standards will be heavily fined by the World Trade Organization (WTO), creating the potential for crippling entire sectors of the nation's economy.
4. All new supplements would be banned unless they went through the Codex approval process.
Five steps have already been taken in the Codex process over the past few years. Remember Canadian Bill C-7 which was passed eventually in Canada as C-8? The similarity of the process, the secrecy, and the wording between the Codex proposals and the Canadian laws is uncanny.
Voting in favour of adopting the German proposal has been overwhelming (16 for and 2 against in the most recent vote). The Codex process is now at "Step Five" - formalization and debate concerning the specific features. In two years, Codex could jump from step 5 to step 8 to finalize these restrictions. The Codex proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany, where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies. In these countries, vitamin C above 200 mg is illegal as is vitamin E above 45 IU, Vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg and so on. Shering-Plough, the Norway pharmaceutical giant, now controls an echinacea tincture which is being sold there as an OTC drug at grossly inflated prices. The same is true of ginkgo and many other herbs. Only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplements as medicines which they can sell to health food stores, convenience stores, or pharmacies.
I understand that step five has been completed and the process is now at step nine.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Late Winter Vigil


FVOP0503
Originally uploaded by Pretty Penny.

FVOP0503,
originally uploaded by Pretty Penny.
Franklin Voices for Peace conducted a vigil on Friday, March 18, 2005, at 5:30 p.m. in Franklin, NC. Standing across from the county courthouse, the group of 13 stood in a familiar pattern, spread out along the sidewalk facing evening traffic. What was different about this vigil was the significant increase in friendly waves, thumbs-up, horn honks, and even an occasional cheer from the passers-by. Something has definitely changed, maybe it is the length of the war, maybe it is a nation growing tired of lurching from crisis to crisis, perhaps it is just a positive reaction from people sensing that there IS the hope that things can actually get better. The vigil was covered by newspapers, and that is a change too. The Macon County News was there early and got a picture of the vigileers before most of them arrived but by then, the reporter was long gone. The Smoky Mountain News was here from Waynesville, too. Sarah Kucharski covered the entire vigil and spoke at length with each member who was at the vigil. Thanks for helping our part of the community get our message out to the rest of the community.
©John Womack, 2005.

Congress Meets Its Match (again)

We poor, normal, ordinary mortals who constitute the constituency of our government, daily watch our elected leaders wrestle with mighty and immortal problems. We impute to them great powers of skill, knowledge and understanding that we know we can never have for ourselves. We see them dealing with princes and principalities, nuclear weapons and trips to Mars, millions and billions of dollars, the economy and the military, and we stand in solemn awe and respect of their greatness. It is not until we see them grappling with events we can understand as human beings that we suddenly see how ordinary and lost they are. Such revelation occurred today - twice! We saw them bringing Schaivo and McGuire “before them” to wrestle with their problems. It was not a pretty sight. Schaivo and McGuire presented themselves as two badly brain-damaged people without memory of their past lives, who nonetheless easily demonstrated an ability to still out-maneuver all of congress in both wit and passion. Then they came to serve, each in their own way, and effect a respite for the Administration from the great peace rallies now under way, and also to give DeLay a chance to demonstrate that he really can seem to be a fine Christian gentleman
As far as McGuire is concened, all we can say is “Shame! Shame!” His message is that the steriods “are not important”. He said that if he claimed he did not use them that no one would believe him, and if he said he had used them he would be badgered by government. In other words the truth is just not important. It is not worth that effort to try to solve the problem. Besides he wants his impressive accomplishments to remain in the record books and not be removed - and he certainly dosen't want an asterisk! His message to kids of today is “don’t get caught”. He was telling them: "Only cheat when you have to, then evade when you have to do that; that's cool." How did congress react? They understood. He was speaking their language.
Schaivo’s problem demonstrates what can happen when politics and theology collide. Our founding fathers tried to separate the two not because it was a “goody-goody” thing to do but because the two great forces are mutually exclusive when they play in the same arena. They both need souls to thrive and they both play on the emotions of mankind. When they crash together, only one will remain to rule the survivors.
©John Womack, 2005